Dream of Flying – Aeronautics

Dream of Flying – Aeronautics
By Saima Batool
The dream of flying machine that just takes off vertically, is an old one. Leonardo da Vinci made drawings for a gigantic screw like helicopter about AD 1500. He never tried to build one because he had no motor to drive it. No one knows where it came from, but a toy helicopter known as “the Chinese top” was shown in France in 1783. In 1796 Sir George Cayley made experimental from “Chinese top” and also designed a steam driven helicopter.
For the next 100 years, a number of people made designs for helicopters, some were fantastic, other almost practical, and few of them actually flew. But there were no powerful, high weight engine. It was not until such engines were made during World War- I that anyone made a helicopter that gets off the ground with a man aboard that was R-4 Allied helicopter, used primarily for search and rescue.
Igor Sikorsky a Russian-American built two helicopters, name S-2 and S-5 in 1909 and 1910, one of them actually lifted its arm weight. Towards the end of 1917, two Austro Hungarian officers built a helicopter to take the place of observatory balloons, it made a number of flights to high altitude but was never allowed to fly freely.
Work on helicopters continued in many countries, but none of the machines were what the inventors had hoped for. In 1936, an announcement came from Germany that the Focke –Wulf company had built a successful helicopter. In 1937 it flew across country at speeds close to 70 miles an hour and went up more than 335 meters.
In 1940, Sikorlty showed his first practical helicopter and it was delivered to United States Army in 1942. 20th August is celebrated as the world helicopters day. Norwegian Bell Helicopter has won the competition held in Sep, 2017. Bell helicopter is a twin engine helicopter can reach a maximum speed of 259 Km/h, the estimated value for the helicopter is 4.2 Million Us dollars. This flying machine had called by different names like, wire bird, Quado Chopper, Helo & Helo.
Pakistan had tested its first locally built helicopter on Dec 16, 2010. It is a two sitter small helicopter made by three engineers from Rawalpindi city of Pakistan, namely Mujibur Rehman, Rehan Janjua and Shakir Ayub. The local made helicopter is capable of flying at the height of 17000 feet with the maximum speed of 190 Km/h. The cost of helicopter is 9 million Pakistani rupees.